Fair enough. I must confess that I'm the last one in the world qualified to pass judgment on Rowling's work; having seen only one movie and having read not even one of her books. My only criticism is her stance on ebooks. Now, she's the creator of those works; they are the product of her labor. As such, she has the right, in my opinion, to make those books available in any form she sees fit, or to prohibit their availability in whatever form she sees fit.

Just as I, as a reader, am free to say that if that's how she feels about those of us who prefer screens over paper, I won't be reading any of her works.

I have seen one HP movie in whole, out of curiosity. I have seen snatches of others, previews, laborious critiques and anticipations of her work, but have never read a line of an actual book where I had to open the cover, or felt a desire to do so.
Sometimes it seems that the ability to assimilate quickly the written word is a curse because opening that visual door slightly lets in things from outside you would rather not have known existed. So much is in the news about Harry Potter that I have learned way too much for my own comfort.

Same thing with the teenage vampire TV series, though it isn't that I don't like vampire movies or even vampire TV. I loved "Priest." I give great honor to the directors and writers of "30 days of night." "True Blood" is somewhat in the middle with comical leanings, and some interesting stuff, and the most deliciously hot vampire of all time, in my mind, "Jessica." I liked the vamps in the "Gates" single season also.
Maybe it is that I don't like Vampires in the 90210 context.

As for eBooks, that was a dumb move by Rowling. I heard that she was still trying to get in good with the "literary" world that took its time recognizing her, (so far as she was concerned.) Personally I can see it also, a kind of "Well, now do you love me and think I am wonderful?" It is that kind of Broadway mentality, where they hold their hand over their heart and bow to the audience.

My own problem with eBooks is that they are priced wrong. When you can get the same book after a year or so for $4.00 used with total legal control from Amazon and still have to pay $9.99 or $7.99 for the eBook that is actually limited in how you use it, that is foolish. I say after a period of time, no more than $6.00 for a new eBook, and if they can work out the technical details, $3.00 for a used eBook. Also there should be time frames associated with all these prices. When the books first come out, the eBooks can be priced higher.

WT, in summary, I think that we are both saying the same thing about "Dame" KT Rowling. "Let her rot in potterdamn," with none of this, "may her soul rest."

I'm a fan of HP. Enough of a fan to read and write fanfic and attend a convention.

That said, I don't think Rowling is the greatest writer ever; if you approach her style with a style guide in hand and start looking for all the things that are "technically wrong", you'd find plenty.

There were also a lot of things in the books, plot-wise and character-wise, that didn't sit entirely well with me. I don't agree with her on a lot of issues; I didn't like the way she treated some characters and topics.

All that aside, I think she's an amazing storyteller and has an amazing talent at world building. And I'm very clearly not alone in thinking that. Not one single book in the world can be loved by everyone, and every person has different tastes (I don't like or am not interested in plenty of other popular books), but I do think it's an unarguable fact that there is something in Rowling's writing that worked for readers. Millions upon millions of readers. (And hype can't account for all of them - the hype had to start from somewhere, after all.)

Will I read her new book? I don't know. I'm not going to declare anything, one way or another, before more is known about it. If it's in a genre I like and the description sounds at least somewhat appealing, then yes, I'm pretty sure I'll give it a go. It may suck, or it may be wonderful. If it's in a genre that doesn't appeal to me, or if the description leaves me completely cold, I am not going to read it just because it's Rowling.

Aren't the Harry Potter books finally available, legally, in Ebook format? As of roughly 6 months to a year ago?

As for the writting, I think JK Rowling is a fairly decent writter. Not the best I have ever read, very, very far from the worst I have ever read. Seperating the writting quality from the entertainment value the best I can, I consider the entertainment of the books extremely high. On par with some of the better books I have ever read for entertainment's sake.

I have read a number of better writters works, but most of those writter's works are not as entertaining if that makes sense.

So to me, she overall excells as a decent writers and a very entertaining author.

Within the realm of fantasy, I think J.R.R. Tolkien was a better writter, but at the sametime I don't think his works were quite as entertaining. I love the books and DO find them entertaining, but they became bogged down a little too often in explanations, histories, etc which detracted a bit from overall entertainment value.

On the one hand I'd give one a 7 for writting and a 9 for entertainment value, the other I'd give a 9 for writting and a 7 or 8 for entertainment value.

Most other highly entertaining fiction I have read tends not to be as well written or at some point becomes rather pedantic in terms of chracterizations, dimensionality of characters etc. For example, David Weber. I find his writting very entertaining on the whole, but he tends to have charaters that consistently fit in to almost exactly the same mold...which in some cases (Honorverse series) can get a little tiring after, say, more than a dozen books with basically the same sorts of characters (the villians are almost always the exact same kind of villians, the heros have almost all the same traits, etc).

HP tended to have characters who didn't simply fit in to the same mold. You have a tragic hero, reluctant hero, bumbling hero, secret hero, true evil villian, villian who finds redemption near the end, the zealot (well, several), the wiseman, etc. There were relatively few characters who fit in to the same character mold as other characters, which is part of what I liked.

Things also weren't always quite as obvious as they first appeared and the world she managed to build, at least in my mind's eye, was vivid and well fleshed out.

There were litterary mistakes, a few things glossed over or not mentioned, etc. However, on the whole it was pretty good writting, especially for such a long series to have a high level of self consitency.

No that is reserved for the Twilight series...which I still don't understand how in the Gods' names my wife can enjoy. She universally pans the writting and thinks the themes are horrible, but she has also read the series at least 4 times over now.

Frankly I, and she at least espouses this, worry about books like that seeing as how I am going to have a daughter in the next few weeks. I personally don't think it is a particularly enriching reading experience or good that the take away message from the books is that obsessive personalities and stalking relationships are both normal, good and to be wanted.

I really don't want my daughter reading books like that until she is very much old enough to parse out the horse pucky from it all.

As the books would have you believe, you only truely love someone if you are willing to stalk them and conversly someone only really loves you if they stalk you.

Oh god yes. I read book one to see what all the fuss was about. The heroine is a whiny girl who wants nothing more than for her undead bf to bite her so they can spend eternity mooning over each other. She has no mother, no girl friends, no goal or career ambition. And this is supposed to promote Christian values, because they don't have sex? But it's only because he's afraid he'll chow her down like filet mignon. Good grief!

Perfectly said, although I fail to understand why it is that the 'fanboys' get all butthurt when you do not agree with the popularity of whatever it is they are beating the war-drums for....popular does NOT equal good. McDonalds is popular but it certainly is not good or good for you...

because fanboys become invasion of the body snatchers-style pod people. you must join their cult or else and they get frustrated when you slip through their clutches. by calling someone a "hater" they're really saying "other! unclean! heretic!"

because fanboys become invasion of the body snatchers-style pod people. you must join their cult or else and they get frustrated when you slip through their clutches. by calling someone a "hater" they're really saying "other! unclean! heretic!"

Potter may have been mediocre, but it did breathe new life into fantasy the way Star Wars helped sci-fi. I doubt we'd have had the wide spectrum of fantasy available today if she hadn't published it.

Sometimes a mediocre work at the right time is better than a masterpiece at the wrong one.

I believe the opposite is true. At a given moment, any number of people might be at work on the same idea, unaware of one another and approaching the idea with different styles and levels of talent and finesse. The moment that one of their efforts breaks through, the rest are relegated to minor status at best, as if they'd been imitations.

An example of this is Tarantino's Jackie Brown, which isn't awful, but which prevented better films from being made. At a certain point in the 90s, there was a buzz about blacksploitation films and studios and producers all wanted to make the quintessential update. Directors from that time were being tapped (such as Melvin Van Peebles), but so were a lot of younger African-American directors and actors. Entire strata of people who wouldn't be given another shot for at least a decade were looking forward to their moment.

Then Tarantino released Jackie Brown, which bored a significant number of people and didn't do terribly well. That moment of opportunity for all those burgeoning talents closed, not to be seen again at that pitch of cultural anticipation.

* * *

It's quite possible that if Star Wars and the Potter books hadn't existed, something better or worse might have taken their place. And since I can't imagine anything worse than Star Wars, I have to assume the alternative would have been either better or merely as bad.

George Lucas erased the abstract play and forbidding beauty of science fiction and replaced it with stuffed animal people and the intergalactic Superbowl. We went from the delicate mechanisms of some vast future chess game to droolers in sports bars rooting for their team.

I believe the opposite is true. At a given moment, any number of people might be at work on the same idea, unaware of one another and approaching the idea with different styles and levels of talent and finesse. The moment that one of their efforts breaks through, the rest are relegated to minor status at best, as if they'd been imitations.

An example of this is Tarantino's Jackie Brown, which isn't awful, but which prevented better films from being made. At a certain point in the 90s, there was a buzz about blacksploitation films and studios and producers all wanted to make the quintessential update. Directors from that time were being tapped (such as Melvin Van Peebles), but so were a lot of younger African-American directors and actors. Entire strata of people who wouldn't be given another shot for at least a decade were looking forward to their moment.

Then Tarantino released Jackie Brown, which bored a significant number of people and didn't do terribly well. That moment of opportunity for all those burgeoning talents closed, not to be seen again at that pitch of cultural anticipation.

* * *

It's quite possible that if Star Wars and the Potter books hadn't existed, something better or worse might have taken their place. And since I can't imagine anything worse than Star Wars, I have to assume the alternative would have been either better or merely as bad.

George Lucas erased the abstract play and forbidding beauty of science fiction and replaced it with stuffed animal people and the intergalactic Superbowl. We went from the delicate mechanisms of some vast future chess game to droolers in sports bars rooting for their team.